“Yes.”
“For you.”
I exhaled. “For someone.”
That earned a subtle shift—attention narrowing, the slightest tightening at the edge of his jaw.
“There was someone,” I said. “Before my father.”
Cassian waited.
“She chose stability,” I added. “She’s … revisiting that.”
His eyes held mine for a long beat, unreadable but present.
“And you?” he said quietly.
“What about me?”
“You’re affected.”
It wasn’t a question.
I hated that he was right.
“I’m … surprised,” I said. “And I’m not.”
“Explain.”
I grabbed the handle of my carry-on too hard. “Because I’ve watched her live carefully for years. Like carefulness was virtue. Like wanting too much was a character flaw.”
Cassian’s jaw flexed once.
“And now,” he said.
“And now she’s coming here to chase the one thing she didn’t pick,” I finished.
His mouth curved faintly—not amusement. Recognition.
“He wasn’t wrong,” he said. “He was just risky.”
“That’s not the same thing,” I muttered, more to myself than to him.
“No,” he agreed. “It isn’t.”
We walked out of the terminal into the humid chill, and Cassian guided us to a waiting car—black, quiet, already running. Not a taxi. Not a rideshare.
Of course, not.
He opened the back door for me, like it was nothing, like it wasn’t an act at all but a default setting of the world he lived in.
I hated that my body responded to it.
Inside, the car smelled like leather and something clean. The driver didn’t look at us—just pulled smoothly into the lane, merging us into Charleston traffic like we’d been expected.
I watched the city slide past the window: palms, pastel facades, tourists already wandering with coffee in hand. My life was right there. On those sidewalks. In those buildings. At thecorner of every street I’d written about, lectured about, walked with Harper while we dissected men and politics and the myths we’d built to survive both.
Cassian sat beside me, still and steady.
